


Tooth and Nail

by recoveringrabbit



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, and learns to fight for herself, but not unresolved angst, in which Jemma fights for Fitz, though not the way one expects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5936518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An idea takes root, shooting down into the loam of her mind and stretching up to burst into bloom. She sucks in a breath. Well, that would solve nearly everything if she could pull it off. Could she do it? There would be loads of logistical details to sort, but she is nothing if not excellent at preparation; it would require a great deal of backbone, but she has that in spades now. It would hurt like hell, but she can bear that. Looking at him, at the dark circles that encroach on his eyelids and the way he cannot manage to keep still and the haggard age that settles upon his features the instant he lets his face slack, she can bear anything. It’s not a question—can it be done? It’s a declarative—it must be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tooth and Nail

They’re fighting in the lab, again, over something so idiotic Jemma can’t believe she’s nearly in tears, and something in him snaps. He starts banging his bad fist on the bench over and over, the metallic thud shaking her core; she knows from long experience that he is too raw to even try to find words. She can empathize. Sometimes she wonders if his way of coping isn’t better than her preferred method of stuffing everything down. Still, her way doesn’t put her at risk of a fractured hand to go with a fractured heart and his does, so she catches his fist between both her hands and holds it so tightly her knuckles turn white. He stops immediately, as she knew he would. He has never hurt her. Not that way, at least. 

Sucking in a shaky breath, he drops his head and stares at a point just shy of where their hands rest on the steel. In times past she would have stroked his arm or run a hand over his back, but both of those feel too volatile now, too close to something wonderful but dangerous, and she can’t seem to loosen her grip on him anyway. The tension drains slowly away. His shoulders relax and his breathing evens out. Her tears dry up unshed (first time in a bit, that). The lab’s silence becomes expectant, rather than hostile.

“Why’re we even doing this, Jemma?”

She loves the way his voice curls around her name, like a cat around her owner’s legs. “I don’t know.” 

“We never used to fight.”

“Yes we did.”

“But not like this.” She squeezes his hand to signify her understanding, and he lets out a heavy sigh. “I’m not even angry at you. I’m not sure I’m even angry. I feel…”

“Exhausted,” she says, not because she knows that’s what he’s feeling but because it best sums up how she feels all the time. 

He nods, covering their clasped hands with his free one. “Why does that result in rows?”

There are many things she could say—in Dr. Garner’s absence she’s done a great deal of reading—but all the official answers seem trite. How did it come to a point that scientific facts can no longer make sense of their experiences? She has tried for so long to order her life according to established rules, trusting that doing so would result in less difficulty; instead the rules keep changing on her, leaving her with nothing except numbness and pain. And, somehow, him. Always him. “Because I’m fighting all the time. And you’re the only one I can’t pretend for anymore.”

“You used to.”

“Yes.” There is no point in denying it. “I thought it would be better for you.”

“I knew anyway.” A pained smile flits across his face. “When I didn’t have my head too far up my own arse, at least.”

She shrugs. What’s done is done. He has been more than good to her when she deserved it less; she will forgive him a few months of self-centered harshness. “So. It wasn’t successful anyway. Why bother any longer?”

What more can she keep from him? She doesn’t understand it, but he seems to love her no matter what she says or does. Her nagging feeling that she doesn’t deserve it doesn’t change the apparent fact. And she is tired, so tired of keeping face for someone who can easily see right through it.

It is a sign of how far they have come from their former selves that he doesn’t fumble when he asks “What are you fighting?” and she answers without thinking, “Myself. For myself.”

She can’t say more. It isn’t that she wants to keep it from him; it’s merely that she can’t better verbalize what she means. Every day she wakes up and goes directly to the mirror, trying to remember what she looks like. Every day, she goes about her routine in a fog, trying all the time to claw her way back to being the woman she only vaguely remembers. It doesn’t work. She constantly feels like a pale imitation of herself, as though the guilt and sorrow and worry have leached all the color from who she once was. 

“I wish I could help you,” he says. “But, Jemma, I’m—”

“—fighting for yourself.” Ever since the pod—before, even—he has believed that he is not enough; whatever happened to him over there has only exacerbated the problem. Her trauma is deep and wide, but his strikes at the heart of his self-understanding. “I know, Fitz. You do help me. And I’ll help you as much as I can.” They always fix things together, she thinks, but wonders if maybe they’ve finally come up against something even their considerable powers can’t mend. Or maybe their powers are no longer as considerable as they were.

He offers her a half-smile, mentally somewhere else entirely. She knows because he brings her hands to his mouth and kisses them before letting go and walking away. He’s usually so careful—whether for her sake or his own she doesn’t know—that the brief forgetfulness threatens to stop her heart with sorrow. 

It’s not that she is ever unaware of what’s going on with Fitz, but she finds herself watching him more closely in the days that follow. What she sees is disheartening, even worse than she thought. His temper pulses just under the skin; he works at all hours and seldom sleeps; he closes down entirely at briefings and in the common areas. His hands are never still. He is, she thinks, on the very edge of breaking, and she wishes she was whole herself so she could keep him together. Instead she begins racking her brain for something else, another way to help. Nothing is forthcoming. 

One night his knock sounds unexpected at her door. He comes bearing two mugs of tea, which signifies a chat rather than a confrontation; she pushes away the memory of the last time he brought tea to her room and manages a tremulous smile. They sip in silence for a few minutes. If she tries, she can almost ignore the weight pressing down on them.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says finally, “about what you said. About fighting." 

“Yes? I have as well.”

“I’ve been thinking,” he says again, staring into his tea like it holds the sum of all knowledge, “that you’ve tried to just get on with it and it hasn’t been working. Maybe all this”—he waves a hand to encompass the entire Playground—“isn’t going to help you get yourself back.”

SHIELD is all the life she has known for ten years. If she cannot find herself here, what hope is there? And yet he is her second pair of eyes. Perhaps he can see a way she hasn’t been able to find. “What do you suggest, then?”

His forehead draws together painfully; she can feel the shape as if it’s branded on her own and she catches and holds a breath, hoping his words won’t hurt this time. It’s a vain hope, as so many have been. “Maybe you should leave.”

“You want me to go?” She would choke on the question were she not so practiced at speaking around a lump in her throat.

“No!” he raps out, so quickly and vehemently that she jumps. “God, Jemma, no, never. I didn’t say that. I said maybe being here isn’t best, maybe it would be easier to get better or come to terms with everything if you weren’t right in the middle of it—”

“You didn’t say _any_ of that—”

“Well, and am I the only one expected to read minds here?” He stops and pinches the bridge of his nose, then continues more quietly. “Sorry. I only thought it might be good to—I don’t know, go home. Sleep at decent hours. Do ordinary science. Go to a therapist that isn’t secretly a serial killer.” 

His words pour into her like a balm, thick wax soothing and sealing over the rough bits so she hardly winces at the reminder of the monster she trusted and set loose. The idea is intoxicating. She couldn’t go home to her parents—she loves them, but they will try to remake her rather than help as she remakes herself—but home to the UK, to green fields and a soft sky and rootedness and quiet. There could be a little house at the end of a lane, and she could take long walks in wellies. If it was the right time of year there might be lambs. “See the sun,” she adds, tears pricking her eyes.

He nods soberly and leans forwards to rest his forearms on his knees. “And it wouldn’t have to be forever, if you didn’t want. Think of it like a sabbatical.” 

Sabbatical: time to rest, to rejuvenate, to spend time on what was important rather than what one had to. The old term, a touchstone from their school days, brings her the comfort she expects he intended it to. “It’s a good idea, Fitz.”

“Yeah?” He looks a little startled, like he can’t believe it was so easy to get her to agree. She supposes it usually is more difficult. Somehow she doesn’t find it essential to push back.

“Yes. When shall we go?”

“We?” he repeats.

A sinking feeling appears in the pit of her stomach and her mind replays his suggestion, even as she pretends she doesn’t understand. “Of course we. You weren’t thinking I would go by myself? I’ve had rather enough solo adventure for one lifetime.” 

“Jemma, I can’t leave.”

“Can’t or won’t?” 

He stops and thinks. “Can’t,” he says, finally.

“Then I can’t either.”

“Can’t or won’t.”

“Won’t,” she says firmly.

He doesn’t let it go at that, of course—he’s so stubborn when he thinks he’s right, so tenacious when he’s fighting for someone he loves—but she refuses to back down either, unwilling to consider the idea of building _another_ life without him. They argue until their tea is cold without coming to a resolution. And then it drifts off to nothing, frustrated tears rolling down her face as he shakes his head and gets to his feet. That would be like last time, too, she thinks bleakly, were it not for the fact that he turns around when she calls his name. “Not again,” she says. “We have to fix it together, or not at all.” 

He sighs heavily, resting his forehead against the door jamb. “Jemma, do you ever think it’s a binary—fix it, or together?”

“Yes.” She’s thought about that for longer than she wants to admit, more times than she can count. “But we’ve got ten years of evidence to the contrary and—” She raises her voice over his protests. “And, honestly, I’ve always thought between the two of us there wasn’t anything we couldn’t do. It’s a difficult habit to break.”

“I’m not sure…”

“I know, Fitz. I’m not either.”

And she isn’t. Her old companions guilt and despair stalk her every step, whispering that she is doing it again, that all she ever does is hurt him and everyone else. If there are such things as curses—which she is still not willing to admit—her utter inability to do anything right no matter how hard she tries is hers. However, that doesn’t mean she can’t _try_. Maybe she can do nothing to help Fitz, but she will do anything to let him help himself.

After pondering their conversation several days, she is struck by the answer with such certainty that she cannot imagine how she missed it before. She pushes down the self-recrimination, which is not important now, and begins to plan. There must be a plan. If she is right, he will be resistant. But more, without a plan she does not trust herself to get all the way through it. Her will is strong, but lately she’s been at the whim of her emotions.

Once she is more or less confident, she goes to find him at a time they will not be bothered. It’s easier than it would once have been; they both are keeping unusual hours and not even the most dedicated lab techs are there at half past two in the morning.

“I’m sorry, Fitz.”

He leans back in his chair, arms dangling at his sides. “For what?” 

 _For everything_ , she thinks wearily, but he will try to convince her it is unnecessary and she cannot bear that one more time so she only says “for not being a good listener.”

“You’re the best listener we have,” he says, a ghost of his old self flitting across his features.

“Then we’re in a great deal of trouble.” She refuses to be diverted from her planned speech; she has not yet got to where the conversation begins to branch. She must get through the easy part first. “I’m still a good observer, though. May I tell you what I’ve seen?”

He just looks at her, the Fitz equivalent of agreement, and she takes a deep breath.

“One: you can hardly stand to be in briefings and you’ve sent me to the last three check-ins. Two: you haven’t even touched the Director’s new arm, though you’ve told him you’re working on it. Three: you aren’t sleeping and you aren’t eating—no, Fitz,” she spoke over his protests, “I haven’t forgotten everything I know about you. I know you aren’t. Fourth: every argument you made for me to leave could equally apply to you, but you refuse to consider going with me. Are all these things true?”

They are, and he is fully aware of it, so he answers her question with one of his own. “And what conclusions have you drawn?”

“None yet. I need more information.” This first question is the hardest and she has to blink back tears before she can ask it, her hands in fists like stones as she braces herself. “Is the reason you can’t go with me because you can’t put yourself back together with me around? Am I—am I making it worse again?”

‘Jemma—”

“If I am,” she says all in a rush, “I’ll leave, of course, anything, but if it’s not that I’d rather not. Because I can’t…no. I don’t _want_ to be without you anymore. Ever. But I want to do it right this time.”

She waits what feels like an eternity but is probably two seconds before he is on his feet and all but shoving her into his chair. All at once she feels the tears pouring down her cheeks, which explains the tissues he places in her lap before wheeling over another chair for himself. He waits until she’s blown her nose (he can’t help but make a face, she notices, and it becomes another of the infinite things she loves about him) before answering. “I told you I didn’t want you to leave.”

“That’s not the same thing. Do you _need_ me to?” 

“No.” He crosses his arms in front of him, done with the conversation. Too bad.

“Are you sure?”

“Jemma, give me some credit. I know what my life is like without you and believe me, this is better.”

She expects so—at least here he knows she isn’t in danger of dying or falling in love with someone else—but her heart leaps anyway. He still wants her here. That’s something. It’s more than she knew last year at this time, anyway. “All right,” she says, voice cracking. “All right. So not that.”

“Jemma, no matter what, I always want you with me.” He shrugs, offering the tiniest hint of a smile. “I think I always will. Don’t worry about that. All right?”

She nods, clenching her hands together so she doesn’t reach out for him but allowing herself a small smile in response. “All right. That’s sorted, then.”

“See? You’re a fine listener after all.” He begins to turn back to his work, but she makes a noise and he stops. “Is that not it?”

“No, it’s not _it_.” In better times, she would have rolled her eyes. “It was just the most important question. I’ve got more.”

“Of course,” he says lightly. “What’s this one?”

This one is easier, but she is loath to break the tenuous peace between them. She can only make herself do so by grabbing onto hope with both hands, sure that nothing will improve if she does not ask it. “Did you tell me everything that happened there?”

 _Maveth_ , everyone calls it, but she can’t. Giving it a name diminishes it somehow, making it seem less than what it was; even ‘death by punishment’ isn’t enough for the place that stole her life and her hope and the core of her heart. Nor does she need to. For her there is only _there_ and _here,_ much like Fitz is the only _he_ that matters.

His jaw hardens as he swallows; his eyes are suddenly far from her and here. She wonders if hers are the same. “No,” he pushes out between clenched teeth. 

She nods. That answer has been obvious as well. “Will you tell me?”

“If I could I would have already.” 

That was a thing she did not know, and it takes her breath away. How long has it been since he has come to her with something that weighed on him? Since before the pod, maybe, trauma and tension creating insuperable barriers he refuses to cross—whether for his or her protection, the result is the same. She has not been his safe place, and she missed it.

He looks alarmed, obviously not quite certain how to interpret her expression. Happiness has become a stranger to them both. Leaning forward, he stammers quickly, “It’s not—I can’t. I’m not keeping it from you because—”

“It’s all right,” she says, watching the struggle between honesty and loyalty play across his face. That tells her everything she needs to confirm her theory. It doesn’t take much of her prodigious intelligence to put the pieces together: Fitz is keeping a secret for Coulson about their time on the planet and, whatever it is, it has destroyed his faith in the Director. He will continue to keep it, because that’s what he does, but the effects of it are eating him up from the inside until he only manages to go on by barricading himself behind a wall of projects and not thinking. She suddenly understands how he managed to create the Zephyr and Bobbi’s new batons and so many models of Coulson’s hand in between circling the world to search for her. “I won’t ask you to tell me. I don’t need to know what happened to know what it’s doing to you. Fitz, it isn’t that you think I can’t heal here. It’s that _you_ can’t.”

His gaze drops instantly, as if he is embarrassed that she found him out, and he presses his lips together to fight the words that want to spill out. She copies him, though she has no more words. Compressing herself merely keeps her from launching herself at him to try and offer even a tenth of the comfort he has given her; she doesn’t know if it would be welcome, now. But then she sees his hand trembling on his knee and she chooses to ignore her fears. Grabbing it, she rolls her chair forwards until her knees nestle between his and their foreheads are nearly touching. “Fitz,” she whispers, “why can’t you come with me?”

Though they are only inches apart, he still manages to avoid her searching eyes. “We can’t both leave.”

“Why?”

“Who would replace us? We’re heads of the Science Division. If we went there would be a vacuum. It’s not SHIELD, not really, but they need us to do the work—”

“All the innocents,” she says. Of course he’s thinking about everyone else. That used to be her job, but when it comes to him the world can burn for all she cares. Sighing agreement, she doesn’t let go of his hand. “But why can I go, then? Why not you?”

“Because we can replace you.”

She jerks back, stung, and he chases her with gentle hands and conciliatory words. 

“No, Jemma, not—listen, it’s just, the lab had to work while you were gone, didn’t it? It took three people to replace you and they still weren’t good enough, but we figured it out. If you weren’t here it would be hard, but we could do it. But me—” He runs his free hand through his hair. “You’ve been here. Who would you put in charge?” 

Her eyes roam the empty lab, filling in the techs and scientists who occupy each bench, and she has to admit that he is right. Even an unbiased party would find it difficult to rearrange their available assets into something resembling a competent facsimile of his ability; she, being very biased, cannot imagine it. She digs her heels in regardless. “What about Omega?”

He sighs, rubbing at his eyes. “Fine with weapons development, rubbish at quantum physics.”

“We have a physicist.”

“Barely,” he snorts, then relents under her disapproval. “Not at a high enough level. And we have no one for aeronautics besides me, and no one who can wrap their heads around interdisciplinary development. It’s all too boxed off. And we can’t have that, not with the Inhumans.”

“No,” she agrees. To deal with the challenges presented by Inhuman biology they need biochem and engineering working as closely as two clasped hands; Fitz had success while she was gone because he is brilliant, but also because he has enough secondhand knowledge to have at least a general idea what direction to direct the biologists. He may not _like_ it, but he can do it. And she—

An idea takes root, shooting down into the loam of her mind and stretching up to burst into bloom. She sucks in a breath. Well, that would solve nearly everything if she could pull it off. Could she do it? There would be loads of logistical details to sort, but she is nothing if not excellent at preparation; it would require a great deal of backbone, but she has that in spades now. It would hurt like hell, but she can bear that. Looking at him, at the dark circles that encroach on his eyelids and the way he cannot manage to keep still and the haggard age that settles upon his features the instant he lets his face slack, she can bear anything. It’s not a question—can it be done? It’s a declarative—it must be done. 

She’s been here before, though, and she mucked it up pretty awfully last time. Jemma Simmons, the old her, was good at learning from her mistakes. Her new self will be as well. “Fitz.”

He looks up from their hands to meet her eyes. Her heart nearly breaks at the sight—his face is old now, but the at-sea, anxious blue of his gaze is a dead-ringer for seventeen-year-old Fitz, new at the Academy and unsure and bracing himself for something dreadful around the next corner. It is all she can do not to put her hand to his face and smooth the worry away, and she hopes beyond hope that there will come a day when they are not constantly afraid that everything will go to hell.

“If you could go,” she says, “if you didn’t have to worry about the lab, would you?” 

“Yes,” he whispers, and that’s all she needs to know. 

 

* * *

 

 

She begins planning right away. The first thing, the most important thing, is obviously the therapist, so she starts there: someone respected, someone intelligent, someone who will understand the need for confidentiality in what is shared but can work past the details to the root of the problem, someone—and this is the only selfishness she allows herself—based in the green, quiet counties that speak of rest to both their hearts. Once she has a list she begins the phone interviews, snatching time from the lab to carry on the lengthy conversations she deems necessary to find the absolute best person for the job. It’s difficult to explain, sometimes, why she is calling on her boyfriend/husband’s behalf (a falsehood she feels no regret about) but all that does is winnow down the field. In the end, the decision is easy. The woman with a kind, warm voice that sounds like Fitz’s mother’s and a keen wisdom that cuts to the heart of the matter tells Jemma that she, too, was a soldier and understands what it is to lose faith, to feel like the world is built on sand. “You sound like you know it too,” she says, and Jemma laughs a little.

“Yes,” she answers, “but he’s my bedrock, so I can stand a few sandstorms.”    

The next thing, almost equal in importance, is finding the people to fill his empty roles in the lab. He could change therapists if one doesn’t work out, but he will never go if he’s not comfortable with the people taking his place. Surprisingly, she finds this the more difficult task of the two. She’s been gone from the Playground almost more than she’s been here, and she hadn’t realized how much recruiting Coulson has attempted—apparently, most scientists don’t want to leave lucrative positions to work both literally and figuratively underground, even to save the world. Hacking the list of already contacted is easy; figuring out who is left that Fitz would accept is harder. In this stage of the plan, her absences from the lab don’t go unnoticed. Nor do the phone charges she’s racking up. After Sam Koenig corners her in the mess and demands to know who exactly she’s calling for hours at a time on the secure lines, she decides it’s time to call in some help.

She chooses May. 

It could be Bobbi, it could be Daisy, but if anyone knows about what it’s like on the other side of war it’s the Calvary, and Jemma has a feeling that May will be an important ally to have. Why, exactly, she is so sure May will be an ally she cannot explain. It’s equally possible that she will tell Jemma they all just need to suck it up and get on with life. And, since she cannot tell May that a good portion of Fitz’s problem is with Coulson, she is admittedly a little worried that she won’t be able to properly make her case. But she must try, anyway, so she finds May at four in the morning with two mugs of tea and stumbles through her speech, hoping that her face will say what her words cannot. It’s hard to tell with May.

The other woman listens impassively until both mugs are empty, then stands. She has always been fluid, but Jemma notices now, as she has not before, that there is a new weight to May’s motions. She shoves aside a pang of guilt and rises to her feet as well. “Will you help me, May?”

“You’ll need a plane.”

Jemma blinks, not expecting that response. “Yes. I suppose. Eventually.”

“No,” May says, “now. To go see these people. And to find a place.”

“I thought I might do that online?”

May simply shakes her head. “I’ll clear it with Coulson.”

“Oh no!” Jemma puts her knuckles to her mouth, not meaning to have burst out like that. Of course, it ought to be cleared with Coulson. She can’t just take May and a plane and head out without an explanation. “That is, I hadn’t wanted to—not yet. Not until it’s settled.” She takes a breath, tries to smile a little. “He’s got so much else to worry about.”

It isn’t a lie, not really, and it probably would have passed with anyone else. However, Jemma should have known better than to try lying to Melinda May, who sees and knows all and seems to have eyes in the back of her heart. May’s face doesn’t move, but her eyes soften imperceptibly. “All right. I’ll just tell him I need you for something I’m doing. He won’t argue that.”

They make several trips in the next few weeks, most of which she explains to Fitz as “something to do with what happened at the castle,” and since she doesn’t refer to what happened with Dr. Garner anymore than she talks about _there_ , he accepts this tiredly. They have other things to talk about, anyway, trying their hardest to have real conversations that don’t end in shouting and tears. Their talks in the labs have helped enormously. Now that the battle is out in the open, their natural predilection to fill in the other’s lack is far more likely to gain the upper hand over exhaustion and hurt. It isn’t perfect, of course. But it’s so much better than it used to be that perfect isn’t necessary. Once, he even cracks a joke solely for her benefit.  

It takes time, but eventually she manages to convince a retired aeronautic engineer that he still can do some good in the world and snatches up a very clever physicist almost as soon as she flips her tassel. The Director passes off the approval of their applications to his Deputy without giving them half a glance. Mack, on the other hand, reads every page carefully.

“I’ll sign them,” he says eventually, as she stands trying not to wring her hands in front of him, “but I don’t see why you need them. Can’t Turbo—”

“Of course,” she says, unfairly sensitive about Mack’s closeness with Fitz, “of course he can, but he’s doing too much. You know the kind of hours he’s working.”

“He’s not working those hours because he doesn’t have enough techs.”

She meets his level gaze dead on, an easier prospect since he’s sitting at his desk and she’s standing, and refuses to let him cow her. “I am going to do everything I can to help him. That is all I have ever wanted to do.”

He scribbles his signature and hands her the papers. She tucks them away carefully, in preparation.

The last thing requires less research and more legwork, as May is unwilling to let her pick a random cottage sight unseen. They draw a circle around the psychologist’s practice on the map, park the quinjet in stealth mode, and rent a car to tool around the back roads of Perthshire. It doesn’t surprise Jemma that May is adept at driving on the wrong side of the road. It does surprise her how comfortable the silence between them is. For the first time in a very, very long while, Jemma’s thoughts are not a prison; she can look out her open window at the lush grasses and smell the rain in the air and let her mind wander, confident that it won’t need to jerk back from the terrors that haunt her. This, more than anything, convinces her that she is doing the right thing. If just this trip can bring her so much peace, how much more will a proper rest do for him?

Only once does May speak: “You know,” she says, as they sit waiting for a cow to mosey out of the road, “SHIELD isn’t everything.”

“I know,” Jemma says, because six months on an alien planet will quickly teach one what is and isn’t important.

“But it can’t be,” May continues, staring out the windshield. “We’re just people. We can’t protect everyone, and we can’t beat ourselves up when we fail.”

Jemma twists her fingers together, eyes fixed on the yellow flowers waving in the verge. “But you can protect one person, can’t you?”

“No. Not even that. But you can damn well fight for them.” Then she turns to Jemma and puts a hand on her shoulder—light as a butterfly, strong as steel. “You are a warrior.”

She takes her hand away and returns it to the gearshift, revving up now that the cow is gone. Jemma blinks back tears.

They find the perfect place: isolated, green, small but not too small, warm and old-fashioned with all the modern conveniences, three tiny bedrooms and an old dairy with plenty of space to work, and with a field to park the jet in case of emergency. The arrangements are made quickly—one of the benefits of trauma is a hefty amount of extra pay—and the final piece clicks into place. There is nothing left to do except present it to him.

She goes to him this time, bearing tea and the folder with her work. Not until she’s standing in the doorway does she realize that this is the first time she’s been here since…well, before the Monolith, anyway, and likely before she came back the first time. It’s neat, which is confusing; Fitz has always been tidy in the lab and a disaster in his personal space. “Where are your clothes?” she blurts out before she thinks.

“The, um, the closet?” Stepping back to let her in, he gestures generally with one hand while accepting his tea with the other. “My new things, if I leave them in piles they get wrinkled, and then I have to iron them, and that’s…” 

“Tedious,” she says, a corner of her mouth quirking up.

He nods. “Quicker to just put them back first thing.”

“You’re nothing if not efficient.” Which is a silly comment. There are about a hundred things more important to his character, and she worries that he will take her words at face value despite her light tone and the fragile peace that has built up between them. At a loss, she offers the folder without comment.

“Something you need me to look at?”

“Yes. The thing I’ve been working on with May. I need your opinion before we can continue.”

He accepts the file and sits at his desk, laying it open in front of him. She cannot watch as he goes through the documents, unable to stop herself from second guessing her strategy. She started with the new additions to the lab, thinking that would be easiest to accept; from the way he nods, just slightly, she made the right choice. After that comes the dossier of the therapist she’s chosen, which confuses him for a second. “Is this another recruit?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“Keep reading.”

One more page over, and understanding breaks across his face. “It’s your cottage. You’ve found a psychologist and a cottage so you can go away, like I suggested. That’s—”

“Wrong,” she says, heart thudding wildly. “I found a psychologist and a cottage and an aeronautical engineer and a physicist so _you_ can go away.”

He’s interrupting before she even finishes the sentence: “We still can’t both go at once.”

“I know. I won’t go. Just you.”

There. It’s out.

He shoots to his feet and stumbles backwards, breathing through his teeth the way he does when he’s utterly overwhelmed. “Jemma, that’s not—that wasn’t—”

“But it should be,” she presses, holding both her hands towards him, palms out. “Fitz, what’s wrong with me—it’s nothing to do with SHIELD and everything to do with me, how I respond to things. It would be the same anywhere. That’s not true for you. It isn’t.”

He cannot avoid the truth of her statement, so he looks away and tries a different tack. “Well, but—” 

“But nothing.” She tacks right back. He will not talk her out of this. “You said you would if you could.” 

“With _you_ , though. You said you didn’t want—" 

“I don’t—”

“—well, but now you’re saying—”

“Ugh, Fitz! You’re not _listening_ to me.”

He collapses onto the bed and spreads out both hands. Taking this as an invitation, she thinks briefly of May’s hand on her shoulder and speaks from that strength, pushing the words past her nerves. “I _don’t_ want to be without you. But it’s more important that you’re well and happy than anything I want. You’ve been—” She has to pause, rolling her eyes to the ceiling to stall her tears. “You’ve been so good to me. Please, let me have a turn to be good to you.”

He pinches his nose and grimaces, facing the carpet rather than her. “It’s not about turns.” 

“No. It isn’t. I’m not trying to make it up to you.” She never can. “I want to do this because you need it and I can give it to you.”

“I shouldn’t take it.”

The tears spill over regardless, frustrated instead of sad. “Why not? Why won’t you let me fight for you the way you always fight for me?” Then she folds her arms in front of her, clutching at her sides—that was the wrong thing to say. The last thing Fitz needs is _more_ of her demands, even if this one is for his own good. She is done asking him to do things for her. Stomping over to the desk, she pushes the papers back into her folder and slams the cover closed. “You can go or not as you like. But it’s there and I’m not using it." 

She intends them to be her parting words, but she is not even to the door before she remembers their recent pact: no more storming off, no more half-finished conversations they’ll never return to, no more hiding their feelings. Turning slowly, she clutches her work to her chest. “Only I’m afraid, Fitz, that you’ll never be well here. I—you—any way you are is more than good enough, but you deserve better than this.”

“I understand.” With his head still down, she cannot read his face, and his tone is too flat to suggest any particular interpretation. She waits, but nothing more is forthcoming. Perhaps he hasn’t anything more to say at present. After a moment, she sets the folder back down and leaves, trusting—hoping—that he will come to her in time.

It takes less than a day before he stops her in the hall to say he’s putting in a request for indefinite leave. She sways towards him, stops herself, and tries a pleased smile instead. “I’m glad. I’ll miss you, of course, but I’m glad.”

And she is, truly, though she has spent several lonely nights preparing herself to walk these halls and not expect to see him—even at their worst, there were awkward meetings by the electric kettle or quick glances through doorways and windows. At times these brief sightings had been all she had to keep herself together. But she is stronger now, she is a warrior, and she can and will go through with this no matter what it demands of her.

She moves gingerly through the nebulous waiting period. He’s here, but preparing to go; she’s won her battle, but is yet to claim the field. Once they know when he’ll actually leave, she thinks, they’ll be able to deal with that, but until Coulson approves his request it’s still “if I leave” instead of “when”.

Then word comes down: request denied.

He tells her on yet another of their late night labs, tossing it out casually as they wait for the centrifuge to end its rounds. “Hope you can get your money back,” he says, mouth a painful quirk. As though he doesn’t know she bought the cottage outright.

“But why?” she asks, all but wailing. He shrugs a response.

“Didn’t say. Just denied.”

The centrifuge stops, but she cannot unclench herself enough to see to it.

“Jemma. Hey. It’s fine.” Carefully, delicately, he closes his fingers around her wrist and rubs his thumb over her pulse point. “I’ll be fine. Maybe we can find a therapist who will do, I don’t know, phone sessions. Or Skype.”

“It isn’t _fine_ ,” she hisses, “you won’t be _fine_ , none of us are _fine_ and this is bloody ridiculous, saying no without even a reason. We have people in the lab who can at least approximate your job! What _earthly_ reason could he have to refuse?”

“Probably doesn’t want to risk it. Or maybe he’s keeping an eye on me. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.” He smiles bravely, and lord, is she tired of that expression on that face.

“Oh, Fitz. It does matter.”

“Not as much as it matters that you did it for me. And it’s there, yeah? It’s planned. So maybe another time.”

She hums an agreement because that’s what he’s looking for, and they resume working until the deep hours of the night have passed and it is time to keep their tryst with the sun. It’s become a thing between the two of them—not every morning, but on the days when they’re both running from nightmares and happen to run to each other, they’ll park themselves in front of the window in silence and let the light wash over them, remembering that the world is bigger than this present darkness. This morning, though, she watches him instead of the sunrise. Eyes closed against the light, he doesn’t notice; he might have fallen asleep standing up for all the alertness he displays. She doesn’t mind. It allows her the pleasure of drinking him in and the time she needs to decide what to do next. He may have given up, but she hasn’t. They will always be each other’s hope when they have none.

There are better ways to fight the decision than the one she chooses—going to her ally May being only the most obvious—but nothing more than the most direct will quench the fire smoldering beneath her skin. Without waiting to marshal her forces or plan a course of attack, she lurks within sight of the Director’s office until she’s sure he’s alone and then bursts in unannounced, guns blazing. “Why won’t you let Fitz leave?” she demands, striding over to the desk like a fury.

Coulson looks up at her mildly before returning his attention to his papers. “We can’t spare him, Agent Simmons.” 

“That’s a lie,” she says.

He waves a careless hand. “I know Mack signed off on some new recruits, but they aren’t at Fitz’s level and won’t be for awhile. Nor do they know us like he does. We need him here. Frankly, I’m a little surprised you’re pushing this. I would have expected you to want to keep him around.”

She sucks a breath in through her nose and expels it through her teeth. As though what she wants is relevant here. As though she wants anything except his good (and, if she’s lucky, her own). “They’re plenty qualified. I recruited them myself; I think I know what would be required to cover his duties. And I am still the head of the science department, am I not? If I think it’s manageable, you ought to defer to my judgment." 

“I _ought_ to?” Coulson’s head snaps up at that, as startled as he ever allows his face to be. “Last time I checked, I was still in charge here. I have a responsibility to take what you say into consideration, but no requirement to act on it. I have to do what’s best for everyone.”

“All right,” she says, having expected this line of attack, “all right. Then do what’s best for everyone and let him leave. You will kill him if he stays here any longer.”

“He appears to be fine.”

She laughs, unable to help herself. “And how would you know, sir? He’s avoided you since you came back from—from Maveth. You and I both know why. No,”—she speaks over his sudden glare, the angry words about to burst into the gas-tinged air—“I don’t know you did, but I know what you’re asking him to do now, and it’s killing him. He has to get away from here, Director, or he’s going to be a burnt-out shell and no use to anyone.”

He will always be useful to her, and even if he was not she would love him anyway. However, she’s banking on the fact that Coulson is now utilitarian in practice; if Fitz cannot make weapons and design airplanes, it would be better to cut him loose and use their resources for someone who can. For the first time, she is glad about her decision to leave him for Hydra. With the memory of the broken, helpless Fitz in the back of his mind, how can Coulson dismiss her argument?

Instead he folds his hands in front of him and leans back in his chair, the picture of casualness. “Maybe later, Agent Simmons, when things aren’t quite so pressing. I need him here.”

The lie multiplied makes her exponentially angry. Coulson tosses it off so lightly, without thinking, without caring; he can’t see beyond his own needs, but more than that, he cannot see beyond what he needs _right now_ , in this moment. A future healthy Fitz would be infinitely better for SHIELD than this broken if still brilliant one, but if Coulson cannot make that judgment…There is no reasoning with him, she realizes, and with that knowledge she runs towards the only course left. Clasping her hands behind her, she swallows back the bile that wants to spill out and makes her voice as even as possible. “If you do not allow him this leave,” she says slowly, “I will hand in my resignation right now and you will lose us both.”

“What,” he says, too startled for it to be a question.

She is a warrior. That’s what May said. And the longer Jemma thinks about it, the more she feels it in her bones. Like Inhuman DNA, it has always been lurking there; it just wanted the right circumstances to bring it out. For the world she will sacrifice; for herself, she will fight long and hard; for him, she will fight forever. A grim smile creeps across her face. “If I go, do you think he’d stay? We all know where—what he will do to follow me. If I ask him to come, he will.”

It’s a bluff, especially considering that he has already refused to leave the lab in shambles—she is by no means as confident as she sounds. Still, their already mythical bond has grown so epic with the recent galaxy-hopping that she firmly believes Coulson won’t doubt her word, despite everything. And she is a very good liar, now. When she must be.

Still in a bit of shock, he pushes himself to his feet and rests his weight against the desk by the white-tinged tips of his fingers. “You would abandon us like that? Abandon your work here, the people we protect?”

She lifts her chin and meets his accusation squarely. It doesn’t even hurt. “I would. For him.”

There is not much Coulson can say after that. He tries to make her promise that she will not leave while Fitz is gone, but she refuses; she attempts to make the leave open-ended, he insists that any extensions be requested in writing by Fitz’s psychologist. And then it is done. He may leave as soon as he is ready.

Battle won, the ache of missing him overtakes the burn of rage. Still, she manages a smile when they say goodbye in front of the jet, May having tactfully removed herself to do pre-flight checks.

“Thank you, Jemma,” he says, adjusting his rucksack on his shoulders with his eyes trained on her. “I never would have done this without you.”

“True,” she says, and her smile almost turns into a laugh. “You prefer martyrdom.”

If they can joke about it, perhaps it won’t have as much power over them. He, apparently, cannot joke about it. She has never seen him more serious than right now. “I’m not the only one. You won’t—you will—”

“I won’t step foot from the lab, I promise. When will I have time?”

He does smirk at that, having attended her mandatory department meeting. It’s going to be a new era of cooperation in the Science Division: intentional cross-discipline pairings, open communication across fields. Despite her four-page outline, which she had managed to keep to _only_ three levels, those poor lab techs hadn’t quite known what hit them. “Whip ‘em into shape, Simmons. We’ve got to be able to go on holiday sometime.”

Her breath catches in her chest. The combination of grin and hope is so unfamiliar, she wouldn’t recognize him if she didn’t have his face memorized. Blood beats in her ears as she tries to remain nonchalant and fails miserably. “Without you to dictate lab hygiene I can’t promise, but I’ll do my best.”

“You’ll be great. Um, you’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do—”

“If you tell me.”

“All right.”

“And we’ll talk,” she asks, “other times. Not just if we need something.”

“Yeah, of course.”

They stand there a minute, not talking, not even really looking at each other. It’s too volatile. There are too many things she wants to say and doesn’t know how. But there’s time, she tells herself—not time now, because May is nearly done and vaguely hovering in the background, but there _will_ be time. This isn’t like their other goodbyes.

“And,” he says suddenly, extremely interested by a scuff on the hangar floor, “if, um, if the lab follows your new guidelines well enough, maybe you could—in a little bit. Um, it’s your cottage, technically, so—”

“I’d like to,” she says, nearly biting the corners of her cheeks to keep them from spreading uncontrollably. “Not for a bit, though; I think Coulson would have a fit.”

As much as she’d like to walk onto the plane right now and never look back, there are things to be done before they can have that peace. Some of them, of course, will have to be done together—that is, physically together, since they are finally emotionally together and getting more so every day—but many of them require solitude, quiet, and time. And she’s ready now, in a way she wasn’t before. Fighting for Fitz has taught her how to better fight for herself.

His head pumps up and down. “Yeah, yeah. In a bit. If you want.”

“That’s not a question, Fitz. And—” She stops to do her own examination of the concrete. “It’s not mine. It’s ours. Whatever—that is, no matter what. Yours, and mine.”

“Ours, then,” he repeats, and she makes a face at him, as he intended her to do.

May’s boots make hollow thuds against the metal ramp, which Jemma suspects she’s doing on purpose. “Wheels up in five,” she calls.

“So,” he starts, but he is suddenly too far away and her arms are too empty so she pulls him to her with both hands and clutches him around the neck. The rucksack is a bit of a hindrance when she attempts to tighten her grip, but he holds her close enough that it’s almost the same thing, and ducks his head into her shoulder so she can better protect it. She breathes him in for a long moment. It might be the first real breath she’s had in weeks.

“Thank you, Jemma,” he says again, the words mumbling and rumbling through her. “I can’t—”

She holds him tighter, more fiercely. “Be well, Fitz. That’s how you’ll thank me. Just be well.”

A quick pressure lights on her shoulder before he pulls back, making her arm go numb and burning a hole through her sweater and blouse. She has to fight not to put her hand over the place to trap the kiss there. “You too,” he tells her, pushing her hair behind her ear.

“I will,” she says, and for the first time she believes it. So many times she has been convinced that they will never be well again, that things are so mucked up between them that they can never be put right, and here they are—if she and Fitz can fight their way back to wholeness together, surely she can offer herself the same courage and grace she grants him without thinking about it. She will stumble over her words and cry into her pillow and convince herself that not everything she does is wrong; she will find joy in science and peace in his smile; she will remember her old self, but take the good parts of what she is now and shape them into someone new. She _will_ be well again.

**Author's Note:**

> *sighs* Versions of this have been on my computer for weeks, and I finally decided to just gut it out and put it up. There may be more—the situation is ripe for domestic FitzSimmons!—but for now, this is what I can do.


End file.
